To start this article on work life balancing, it would be perfect to first go into what the term work life balance really means. When we say work life balancing, it simply means a very comfortable balance that an employee or a staff can get between their personal individual lives and their primary priorities at their workplace.
So, it has always been argued recently by scholars that the thin line between work and personal life should not be interfered with and should not affect each other. Whatever demands that come from an employer duty or job description should not affect the personal life of the employee.
But recently over the years professionals believe the balancing of work and life is not quite realistic, because the scale would definitely tilt or favor either work or personal life, you can’t have both. Work life balancing should definitely be aimed at even when it is certain that it can not be absolutely achieved. It can’t be balanced a hundred percent or perfect.
Even though it does not seem to be a hundred percent attainable, it is still believed that companies and businesses should actually encourage and facilitate work life balancing among their staff to aid their productivity. When the staff is happy, work gets better and faster.
Through this a lot of people have ended up having a misconception about what work life balancing really is and if it isn’t really possible. Some people believe it’s possible to balance your work and life relationship while some don’t, but this article would clear out the misconception on what work-life balance and show some wrong understanding of work-life balance.
- When we talk about work-life balance, it does not mean a regulation or allocation of equal time or hours to your work and your personal life. This would just totally lead you the wrong way if you assume or think that work life balancing would require you to allocate the same time for work and same time for your personal life. This idea or mentality further makes the whole idea of work life balancing very unrealistic to a great length. It can not be entirely possible to spend exactly the same time you spend at work with the amount of time you use for your personal effects.
- Stop saying yes to everything. It does not even mean if your personality is that of a workaholic, you are not totally obliged to say yes to every single task given to you, when you don’t know when to say no or reject a task, you have broken the attempt to actually balance your work-life. Majorly you have to draw the line between what kind of task marks off as urgent and what does not qualify to be urgent tasks or you would end up bringing the tasks and affect either your work or your personal life.
- Work and life balance does not involve switching off during emergencies. Most times there are off hour tasks, calls or messages that probably intrude into your personal timing but these off hour tasks could be tagged emergencies and places under urgency, situations like this would require you to set aside work life balance and actually be the hero to the situation and take charge. In some cases where plans for your personal life can not be canceled or postponed then it’s advised to either reassign or designate someone else to fill in for you, but with the mindset that the emergency comes first. In the name of work and life balancing it would be appropriate and advised that you should not entirely disconnect yourself from your work or your impact might not be felt or needed eventually if the company can’t count on you to come through for them.
- Work and life balancing does not mean you are the boss of your schedule or yourself. Times when you are fully committed to a task at work and all in the name of work and life balancing you probably sideline or procrastinate a job, it is not acceptable or advisable. You need to be strategic and reasonable in dealing with your job and handling your work life balancing schedules. It is wrong and irresponsible of you to make plans for your personal life when you have a workload of outstanding tasks to do from work which you have already committed yourself to.